CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Dr. David Ray Cesko,66, of Rawlins, Wyoming, pleaded guilty on Feb. 26, 2020, in U.S. District Court in Cheyenne to multiple charges that, as a physician, he unlawfully distributed controlled substances, primarily opiates and benzodiazepines, to his patients.

Cesko was charged by a Wyoming federal grand jury in March of 2019 in a thirty-count indictment following a lengthy, collaborative investigation by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration. The charges alleged that Cesko had, without a legitimate medical purpose and outside the course of professional practice, unlawfully prescribed pain killers and other controlled substances to multiple patients. At the hearing today, pursuant to a plea agreement, Cesko pleaded guilty to twenty of the original charges, including charges that he unlawfully prescribed codeine cough syrup and opiates to minor, female patients, and, on several occasions, that he unlawfully prescribed opiates to a pregnant minor.

Cesko is scheduled to be sentenced on May 13, 2020, in U.S. District Court. He faces the possibility of decades in prison. As part of the plea agreement Cesko also agreed to forever relinquish his medical license and prescription authority. Judge Scott W. Skavdahl presided over the change of plea proceedings and Assistant United States Attorney Stuart S. Healy III represented the government.